Wednesday, 13 May 2009

Saturday, 2 May 2009

"by this i mean, for an alternative project to actually have credence it should be able to function within a system, while revolting to a system, otherwise it is just a idealistic venture that will only work in some kind of utopian fantasy."

therefore PHAT must in a way revolt to the aesthetic system, but still reside in it.

Been mulling over designs for PHAT's self similarity, the more I try to mold my ideas to aesthetically resemble what spill want, the further away from the initial concept of PHAT i dive. The fact that i have the guidelines for the way the end result must look means i am starting the process at the end and really, working backwards.

Usually i would have the system revolving around the possibilities of one template and work against the limitations of that one template. the end result is not nessesarily governed by something as superficial and fleeting as looks, and the beauty of garment is found by manipulation of the template through the whole process from mapping to drape/construction.

I have been thinking that the more abstraction a concept or performance has, the more symbolic it is and therefore the cheesier. (i have an intense disregard for symbolism, which may have stemmed from overkill of it in my catholic school religion classes) If you want to get to the bare roots of something, just one simple idea- but every aspect of that one idea, how do you convey it without superfluos matter? sometimes i think sending brain messages might be the purest way, but then this would cancel out the need to create any thing tangible.

this is how i felt last year- which led me to film, but i soon found out that in the production of the right image for the film i had to create oodles and oodles of objects that post film, became obsolete, glorified only for their history or documentation that a film/performance had taken place.

Thats it then. creation of objects to convey and idea is a silly but unavoidable task.

(nb: not counting the joy in making, the joy in having something as a keepsake etc.)

Its like the creation of work that is anti-art-system, it really must be inserted into the situation it revolts against to actually be able to be contextualised as being different. but then if its being exhibited in the same manner, or abiding by the same guidelines as highbrow art, has it become the very thing it strives not to be? is there no alternative?

Its times like these when i think it would be much more powerful to perform 'standing still with nothing on' and do just that: stand still, with nothing on. but this still does not solve my issue of backwards templates and surface guidelines.